It's that time of year again. Thanksgiving is upon us. It is the time of beloved four "F's" of fall: family, friends, football and food. Thanksgiving is the one day a year when it is totally acceptable to consume abundant amounts of food, followed by lounging on the couch for the rest of the day.

East Penn School District schools will be closed for Thanksgiving break Nov 22 through 26 for students to spend time with their families.

The way I see it, Thanksgiving is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only do families get to eat a delicious meal one night, they can also enjoy that meal the next day… and the next day.

Thanksgiving leftovers are almost better than the meal itself. I mean, who doesn't love a cold turkey sandwich for lunch the next day?

As a child, Thanksgiving meant a couple things. For one, we would learn about pilgrims and Christopher Columbus and things of the sort. It would typically be followed by the teacher reading us a book while we sat on the carpet, wide-eyed. We would make pilgrim and Native American hats out of construction paper and feathers and proudly display them all day during school.

A personal favorite of all the Thanksgiving traditions and activities would have to be the hand turkeys. Basically, we would trace our hands on a red, brown, yellow, or orange piece of construction paper and cut it out. Then, we would list things we were thankful for on each finger (i.e., my family, my dog my playstation). Sometimes we would even add feathers to make our hands look more like an actual turkey (or to just compete with our neighbors to see how many feathers we could stick on).

Another highly-anticipated event is watching "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" while nestled in layers upon layers of cozy blankets.

As I've grown older, however, Thanksgiving has developed a deeper meaning in my life.

To me, Thanksgiving is one of the greatest American traditions. It is a constant in our culture that can never be taken away. No matter what changes for us, whether it is moving away to college, divorce or anything else, we will always have Thanksgiving. We will always gather around a table to eat turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and more, all in the name of tradition. It doesn't matter how big the table is, or how many people are sitting around it, just as long as the people we care about surround us, Thanksgiving will always be special.

On this one day, we express our thanks and our gratitude to what we have and the people in our life. We count our blessings and reflect upon the positive elements of our lives.

In my opinion, one day just isn't enough for such reflection.

Everyday should be a little bit like Thanksgiving. Sure, we have struggles and hardships and overall bad days. Things go wrong, and sometimes bad things happen to good people. But at the end of the day, we have to be thankful for the things that go right, rather than focusing on the things that go wrong.

After all, we are all so much more lucky than we think we are.